Virginia AG's Brief Wrongly Equates AR-15s With Machine Guns and Misreads Second Amendment Precedent
Source: Jordan Boyd. "Virginia AG: 'AR-15s Are Machine Guns Except That They' Are Not." October 29, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author says Virginia's attorney general is treating AR-15s like machine guns, which they aren't, since they fire one round per trigger pull. She also argues his history is wrong and that Supreme Court rulings protect modern firearms, so his argument for letting governments ban AR-15s doesn't hold up.
Conclusion
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones's Supreme Court brief defending Cook County's ban is built on factual and constitutional falsehoods: AR-15s are not machine guns and are protected 'arms' under the Second Amendment, so his case for allowing states to ban them fails.
Premises
- Machine guns are legally and mechanically distinct from semiautomatic rifles: they fire continuously on a single trigger function, while AR-15s require one trigger pull per round.
- Firing rates differ greatly: military M16s fire about 800 rounds per minute, base AR-15s about 45, and AR-15s modified with bump stocks or forced reset triggers about 400.
- Jones's claim that AR-15s were restricted soon after becoming available is false: AR-15s were sold from the 1960s, and the first ban did not come until California in 1989.
- Heller held that only 18th-century arms being protected is a claim 'bordering on the frivolous,' and Bruen held that the Second Amendment's definition of 'arms' covers modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense.
- The AR-15 was never a military rifle and is among the most common, bestselling, and effective self-defense firearms in the U.S., contradicting claims that it is a 'weapon of war' or that its ownership is uncommon.
Assumptions
- The legal and functional difference between semiautomatic and automatic fire is decisive for Second Amendment analysis.
- Common ownership for lawful purposes such as self-defense is the relevant test for Second Amendment protection.
- Heller and Bruen are controlling and apply to bans on semiautomatic rifles.
- Factual inaccuracies in the brief undermine its legal conclusion and reflect bad faith or ignorance rather than a differing legal interpretation.
- The number of states with bans (11 plus DC) is irrelevant to whether a ban is constitutional.